The Midterm Convention: Can Trump Turnout Hold the GOP Majority?

0:00Band-Dool is now available everywhere in the U.S. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. May this year most rewarding season ever with Band-Dool. Agent location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. C-FanDool.com for eligibility, gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar. I'm Trey Gowdy. I'm Jerry Willis. I'm Bill Hemmer, and this is The Fox News Run Down. Tuesday, September 8, 2026, I'm Jessica Brosenthal. The first ever Republican midterm convention kicks off tomorrow in Dallas, and the big motivator for the gathering is to rally the base ahead of midterms. How do we get people that want to be in the know and actually get them to care about the outcome and the one person that can do that is Donald Trump?

1:01I'm Dan Anthony. This week marks 25 years since 9-11, and Carl Rove, who was a senior Bush advisor, takes us through the president's day dealing with the terror attacks. The phone rings, the president has the phone. I can only hear part of the conversation, but I know what's bad when he said his runs fell to live. It was the strike on the Pentagon. And I'm Carol Markowitz. I've got the final word on The Fox News Run Down. While some of the headlines are focused on the Republicans who aren't going, plenty are attending and speaking at the midterm convention in Dallas. The president floated the idea last fall, but it didn't come together really until June, with an agreement to hold the two-day event in Dallas, beginning tomorrow. The president said from South Carolina a couple of weeks ago, the goal is to remind people about how motivating he can be to voters. So just say that I'm on the ballot. One more time, you gotta say it, and you gotta come out and vote.

2:01Last week, the president said he planned to travel to swing districts and vulnerable areas throughout the fall. I'm gonna take the final 30 days, maybe a little bit more than that, because it's all about 35 races. I'm gonna go to every one of those 35 places, and we're gonna see if we can get everyone elected. House Minority Leader Huckim Jeffries has himself traveled to meet with Democratic lawmakers ahead of November, and indicates they will be tying Republicans to the president. We're in the midst of a Trump slump, an unprecedented extremism that has been unleashed on the American people from the very beginning of this toxic administration. Speaker Mike Johnson recently praised the new candidates they have running for specific seats like in South Texas. We have races like that around the country, the highest quality candidates I think that we've had in a long, long time. Very, very bullish about our prospects because of that. While some Republicans aren't going to this convention, including main Senator Susan Collins and Michigan Congressman Tom Barrett, dozens of others are including administration officials in Congress and new candidates. The president is expected to appear both nights delivering the keynote Wednesday.

3:04The keynote Thursday will be delivered by Vice President Vance. It's not a presidential nominating convention, but it is a midterm convention. Former R&C chairman and Fox News political analyst Rines Priebus. So the president, you know, we had such a great convention in Milwaukee in 2024. The president said, you know, why don't we do this in the midterm as well and get a lot of enthusiasm out of our base and our folks. But also there is some party business because there is an R&C meeting taking place in Dallas during the time of the convention. As I understand it, there also going to be doing some official business as it relates to the 2028 convention, which is going to be in Houston. So there is party business going on and it is a party and it will be an opportunity for 2028 convention business as well. We have heard President Trump say, please pretend I'm on the ballot in November.

4:08Is that part of the goal of this convention is to reinforce that to remind people about his presence within the Republican Party, even if he's not going to be on a ballot? Well, you have to keep in mind something that's very tricky in politics and turning out voters in these elections. And what's tricky is that in a midterm election, a lot fewer people vote usually people that are in the know, number one, and actually care about the outcome. That's a smaller group of people than who vote in a presidential election. The only problem is the Republican Party hasn't been doing great in midterms. And we have become a great presidential year party, especially when Donald Trump is on the ticket. So the trick is, how do we get people that want to be in the know and actually get them to care about the outcome and the one person that can do that is Donald Trump.

5:10So 54 million people voted on the Republican side of the aisle in 2022 and 2024 80 million people voted in the Republican Party. So we need to figure out how we can motivate about 30% more people who voted in 2024 than 2022. We need to figure out how do we get them to vote? And that person's Donald Trump. So we have to get him out there across the country and get people excited about voting. And I know it cuts both ways a little bit, but that's going to come with the territory anyway. So if you're Republican out there running for office, Democrats are going to link you to Trump. But we want to get the benefit of Trump too. And that means getting out those voters that don't normally vote in midterm. It sounds like we do have some a bit of a guest list. We know some of the names of the folks coming. And I just want your take on some of these hopeful, some of the more vulnerable like Mike Lawler in New York and Ryan McKenzie and Pennsylvania and Derek Van Orden in Wisconsin.

6:14These are all incumbents facing tough races, but we expect to hear from from candidates, either hoping to keep the seat read like Arizona won with Jay Feeley or running to like flip a seat like Lori Buck out in North Carolina or Eric Flores in South Texas. Who are you paying attention to? Who do you have high hopes for? Who do you want to hear from? Well, you know, it's really interesting. Obviously I saw that Senator Houston's going to be speaking. Derek Van Orden. Obviously, I'm a Wisconsin guy. I care a lot about DVO, Mike Lawler's an old friend from the Republican National Committee days that you've mentioned. You know, when you read that list, it just reminded me of what we were talking about earlier that even people that are in tough races are coming to the convention because the reality is if we can't get people that love the president to vote in a midterm, we will have a problem, which is why for all the critics out there that are saying, you know, why are you featuring Trump?

7:21Why are you doing a midterm convention? Why are you? It's because we have to get people who have created a phenomenon in this Republican party. A lot of rural voters, a lot of non-degree people out there, you know, high school diploma factory workers, people who have become Trump fans. But not necessarily Republican party people. So that's the trick. And that is what you're seeing. So here you have all these really, really tough races, 50, 50 seats coming to Dallas because that's what they need to do. They need to get Trump voters to vote. Yeah, I keep hearing people like Speaker Johnson say like Speaker Johnson said he's very bullish on the midterms. Plenty of Republicans say we understand history. If past is prologue, this isn't going to work out well for us in November, but there seems to be a lot of hope is this wishful thinking. Do you also have hope that it's still going to be a tight margin or that the Republicans are going to hang on to the house?

8:25Well, certainly the general historical mood and sort of the atmosphere of this favorite Democrats generally because it always has. But the difference between today and even 10 years ago or 20 years ago, the Tea Party movement in 2010, there's not 40 seats to flip. We're talking about 18 seats if that. So you have 18 seats in only 5,000 voters in each of those 18 seats that are will actually move the election. So now you take a few billion dollars and you dump it on the heads of 18 times five was at 90,000 people. And you're going to know everything you need to know about those 90,000 people. The party knows what beer they drink, what car they drive, only kids they have, whether their market is right set up, upside down, they know everything. And that's what makes this so difficult because people that think wave elections, there's just nothing there. That's the difference. So you don't really know.

9:34And the Republicans have like a 10 to 1 money advantage. So yeah, I mean, you can see how if Republicans hold on to majority, it will be by a few. And if the Democrats win the majority, it'll be by a few, not much. Just a couple more for you before I let you go. You know, a lot of money you just referenced that the Republicans are outraising Democrats, at least a lot of the committees are. Can you tell me because a lot of that money goes to advertising and I just wonder, what do you anticipate on that front? We know in 2024, one of the big ads that caught everybody's attention was the one with Kamala Harris saying that she was for transgender surgeries for people who undocumented people who are incarcerated. And that made, you know, that made the rounds. There have been a lot of democratic socialists on the airwaves being very emphatic about what they believe in. Do you anticipate an ad or two or more that features that in some of these, in some of these districts or maybe even outside some of these swing districts as general campaigning?

10:43Well, two things. Number one, Republicans need to remind people of all the wins, whether it be the tax bill, whether it be immigration that we've shut down the border, crime. So Republicans need to remind their voters of the wins. That's number one. Number two, we're going to tie every single Democrat running for office to every Democrat not job out there. All of the talk of killing the Senate, allowing illegal people to vote to, you know, get rid of the presidency to, you know, all of this Democrat socialist nonsense is going to be front and center to transgender bill of rights, the sympathy for 9-11, the anti-Semitic comments. Every single Republican will probably tie Democrats running in tough seats to these Democrats socialist whack jobs.

11:46Finally, Ryan, tell me this convention is happening on the anniversary of the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I just wonder, while it sounds like the convention will be celebratory, how do you anticipate that Kirk will be honored? Or remembered, I imagine it will at least take up a few minutes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we would never go through the day without remembering Charlie Kirk. He will be remembered, obviously, during the convention. But most importantly, he's remembered every day among all of his friends, fans, family, loved ones. And that's the most important thing. And obviously he's in heaven and in a much better place. However, the tragedy, the shocking way that this happened, I mean, it's a terrible, terrible thing. But he'll be finally remembered. Ryan Sprebus, thank you so much for joining us in your time. I appreciate it so much.

12:46You're bad. Thank you. Thank you. Agent Location Restrictions Apply, Product Availability Various By Mark, CFanDool.com for eligibility, gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar.

13:48We've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. Friday will mark 25 years since those hijackers flew those planes into the Twin Towers in New York City and then into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. Then passengers famously fought back on flight 93, which went down into field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack. That was President Bush in a nighttime address from the Oval Office after taking quite the journey from Florida where he gave that first speech he heard in the morning. Carl Rove was with him as we focus all week here on the rundown on the tragedy, the bravery and the legacy of September 11th, 2001. 8.48 AM, my phone rang. I'm standing about 10 feet away from the president outside of him or book her elementary school. Carl Rove was a Fox News contributor now, but on that day, he was a senior advisor to President Bush, but with the time was in a classroom and a reading event with school children.

14:57And my assistant Susan Ralston says a plane has flown into the World Trade Center said, call me back when you got more. And I walked to the president about 10 feet away and he was shaking hands with teachers and parents and administrators at the school. And I told him, and he sort of raised the eyebrow and you know, get more. Yeah, and this is in Sarasota, Florida. And everyone remembers the imagery. The president sitting there, they're reading to children. And then of course, Andrew Card goes over to talk to the president, right? We're watching the second plane flying at the World Trade Center and Andy, the chief of staff knew he need to go tell the president. So he walked in famous photograph of the, you know, we're cupping his hand and telling the president about the second plane. And the president had a decision to make, which was should he immediately stand up and walk out and excuse himself. But he thought the reading demonstration was almost over. He thought it was a matter of, you know, few moments, 30 seconds. And I think it was actually closer like four minutes. Can you imagine sitting there knowing that?

15:57No. And trying to compose yourself. He took some criticism for not jumping up and doing something right away. Yeah, well, if he had jumped up and you know, there would have been criticism either way. And when he walked into that staff hold, there was a different George W. Bush. He was calm. The voice was steel. He said, give me the vice president and the director of the FBI, the FBI director. And we jumped on the secure phones. We could not get the vice president because at that moment, unbeknownst us two secret service agents have burst into the West Wing office of the vice president, grabbed him under the armpits and are running down a hallway to get him to the peop the bunker underneath the White House. And because they had concluded that flight 71 was circling the mall and an attempt to get around the Washington monument and crash into the White House. That's crazy to think about all this as it happens. And the president does come out and make an address in the school. How long before he does come out and say that?

16:57No matter if you know 10 minutes or less, you know, it's funny. He was sitting at a table. Remember, this is for kind of this is like an elementary school. So the room that the staff hold was the kindergarten room. Okay. So he's sitting down at a table, which is meant for kindergarten. So he's in a tiny little table. Okay. A tiny little table with his pen and a piece of paper. But it's just this weird scene of you know him in. He's got his handwriting. He can read it. But it's undecisifable to normal human being. And he gets up makes the comment to the nation and Eddie Morens, old ahead of the secret service detail that they said, Mr. President, we need to get you to Air Force one and Airborne as quickly as possible. They were worried. You know, everybody knew where he was. Yeah. And they were afraid that they might have a plan to take a plane and crash into the elementary school. So they wanted to get him out of there. I mean, there was so much you didn't know at that moment as to how big this operation was. How big this attack was going to be normally. I'd be in a vehicle two or three behind, but the president whistled at me and had me go with him in the limo. So it's in the car. The president and me and we're on the way to the airport. And we're going like 85 miles an hour.

18:01I mean, we're like the bad out of proverbial hell. And there's a little phone to the side. I'm sitting in the back seat. The president's on the right side. I'm on the left side. Andy's on the jump seat looking at us. The phone rings. The president has the phone. I can only hear part of the conversation, but I know what's bad when he said is runs fell to live. It was the strike on the Pentagon. Wow. We get on Air Force one. We get to the end of the runway. Colonel Tillman turns that Air Force one at 747 around like it's a piper club. Stomps on the brakes. Powers up the engines louder than I'd ever heard. And let's go and we go rolling down that runway. And when we get airborne, he stands it on its tail. He's going to get us to 40,000 feet as quick as possible. And where I'm literally looking up at the president, the locked into my seat with a, you know, and he's he's locked into a seat with not only the seat belt with the shoulders. And we're looking up at him. I mean, because it's the plane is just like, you know, like a rocket. It is amazing to think about that. And as you're doing that, you've already had New York hit with both planes, the Pentagon hit.

19:04Were you in the air when you found out about flight 93? Yes, we were in the plane immediately at argument broke out. The president wanted to go back to Washington and everybody didn't want him to come back. Cheney called in. Rumsfeld left the fighting the fires at the Pentagon to call say don't come back, Mr. President. We don't know what we don't know. There were words that there be somebody with a shoulder launch missile waiting waiting for the, you know, waiting for the Air Force one to be on final approach to Andrews and pop the plane. And, you know, the president was emphatic. We're going back to Washington. But finally, one of the middle aides Air Force guy came in and said, Mr. President, we don't have a full fuel load. He recommended we go to a secure military facility. We ended up landing in Treyport, Louisiana at the headquarters of the eight Air Force because they were on a drill the day before they had locked the base down to do a training drill. And, you know, so many employees, President briefed it's a headquarters of eight Air Force. This is the first time somebody says Al-Qaeda.

20:04The command structure of the government had been dispersed to undisclosed locations as the Secretary of State, Colin Powell was literally in South America on business. But, you know, Cheney is in the P.O.c. the Pregnance Emergency Operations Center with Condi Rice, you know, the defense secretary is a secure facility blah, blah, blah. Everybody's just dispersed. Now they can technology has really changed a lot. And, you know, I said, Mr. President, in order to have a conference with all of the leadership, you know, the head of the CIA, the head of the FBI, et cetera. You know, we can't do it at your current location, but there is the facility at often Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska, where we can connect all the command structure, the national command structure for a full briefing. So we recommend that you fly to there. It's an hour and a half north of you. They finish the briefing and the President says I'm coming back and we're on our way to Washington. And, of course, they don't come. Don't come. Don't come. Don't come. You can't blah, blah, blah, blah. The President said, look, I'm going to speak to the country from the Oval Office. I'm not going to be speaking from a bunker underneath the Nebraska Parade. I'm coming home. And besides that, I'm going to sleep in my own bed tonight, which was sort of a semi-ajocular way of ending the conversation, but it was not jocular.

21:09He's the President. He's the, he has the final say. So you then fly back to Washington. Did you have an escort? No, not until we got, well, we'd had an escort during the day. You could sort of occasionally see him if we bank left or right. You can see above us or below us, fighter cover. And I'm standing in the aisle outside his office, whether one of my colleagues, and we look out to the left and up comes an F-16 fighter and takes up station literally at the wingtip. You could make out the face of the guy. And my colleague said, get a picture camera. I've been taking pictures of little camera. He said, take a picture. Get a picture. I walked back into the President's office where my briefcase was. And there was an F-16 on the right hand. And again, right at our wingtip. And we crossed into what's called the National Capital airspace. And we were sort of excited about it. Isn't this really cool? And then both of us at the same moment got really sober and quiet because we both realized what this was. This was not some ceremonial escort. These guys were the last line of defense. If something came at Air Force One, those pilots had one responsibility, but they're crap between that threat and Air Force One.

22:18The speech the President gave that night. How much did he write? You talked about he wrote, scribbled on the desk in the kindergarten room, the first one. What about the one at night? Well, he had a lot of clarity on what he wanted to say. And Karen Hughes was in the White House with the speech writers. And the President was on the plane, but it was like, here's what I want to say. And she had a mind milled with him. And so she could capture what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. We got in the oval and we realized that we had one thing missing, which was how many people had died. And during the day I'd been talking to Mayor Giuliani and Governor Patakis people. So I called where we're in the oval office. And the guy literally there is with the teleprompter getting ready to win. We're literally five minutes, 10 minutes before we're supposed to go live to the nation. I call Tony Carbonetti, who was one of Giuliani's right hand guys and I said Tony, how many people died? What's the death count? And he said, we think it's about 3000. And to my horror in retrospect, I turned to my colleagues and said, it's only 3000. It's only 3000 because we've been talking about it. You know, it could be 15,000, 25,000. I mean, there are tens of thousands of people who worked in those buildings.

23:28Fast forward three days. President Bush goes to New York City September 14th. The ruins of the Twin Towers still smoldering. And it gives perhaps his most famous speech to the rescue and salvage crews at the World Trade Center site. But he was using a bullhorn, not a microphone and someone shouted, we can't hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you and the people. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. It was an address that was not planned or scripted as the president visited ground zero. And we're in a small motorcade. And we go south on the street. And on either side of us are these huge piles of rubble all along the side of the street. And people standing on them. And you know, you couldn't hear what they're saying, but you could see their fists and they were waving their fists and unison. A lot of American flags. We come to the end of the road and a couple of the vehicles, including the president vehicle, turned to the right and stop.

24:35When you open the car door, you heard what they were saying. They were chanting USA, USA, US. These guys covered in dirt and grime and dust and filth. And they're just chanting. And there was a fire truck right there. And there are three guys on top of the fire truck. And I look at that. I'm going to say, is this thing stable in the like you're an idiot and I said, jump up and down, jump up and down because I wanted to see if it was stable. And they jump up and down. And it looks reasonably stable. And so the president goes over there. Now there's only one guy left because the there was a young Latino and a young Anglo. And both of them now disappeared out of history by jumping off the truck. And there's sort of an old guy standing there. Yeah. And he's sort of looking around the crowd. And he's not paying attention to it because there's a lot of people milling around. And this guy stands below him says, give me a hand. Let me hand up. And he reaches down to offer the guy's hand, pulls the guy halfway up and realizes it's the president of the United States. And he completely freaks out. You may remember.

25:38And then as his arm around him. Yeah. And then and then to arrest his history. You know, he doesn't know how to use a bullharn. So it starts to talk to nobody can hear him and somebody yells, I can't hear you. And he finally figures out, pull the trigger on the bull horn. And says, I hear you. The whole world hears you and the people who did this will hear from us from all of us soon. That was not something that someone wrote on a note card. Right. That was all ad lib. That was all ad lib. That was him. That was him in the moment. And it all happened because he'd like five foot, you know, sticks, inch tall White House advance woman said they want to hear from him. That is amazing. And of course, the presidency is altered immediately. Yeah. Had to keep America safe and to make sure that we brought to justice those people, destroyed their ability to attack us again and kept America safe. Carl Rove was there for all of that when the president had to act on 9 11 and in the days after the United States was hit by the terror attack September 11, 2001 25 years ago.

26:45Carl Rove at the time, senior advisor and president George W. Bush now a Fox News contributor. Carl, thanks so much for taking us back. You bet. Thanks for having me. Bandool is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. May this your most rewarding season ever with Fandool agent location restrictions apply product availability varies by market. C Fandool dot com for eligibility gambling problem called 1 800 Gamer. Did you hear the news now you can with instant updates from Fox news for Amazon Alexa just say Alexa play news from Fox in Fox news. It's the latest when you need it on demand from Fox News and Amazon Alexa.

27:47Subscribe to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts dot com. It's time for your Fox News commentary. Carol Markowitz. What's on your mind? Should your kids go to Harvard many parents have their doubts and liberals seem shocked recently transportation secretary Sean Duffy made the question go viral. Duffy and his wife Rachel campus Duffy in a clip from their YouTube series about their families travels were seen discussing whether their teen daughter Paloma should apply to Harvard University in light of the importance of their Catholic faith and the values they've instilled in her. The idea of dropping her off at a place that would undo all those things makes me worried campus Duffy says the pushback was immediate at the Los Angeles Times Lorraine Iley called the conversation truly disturbing on CNN former Biden administration official Megan Hayes said the conversation was offensive and a little self righteous. Here to be the first time that leftist had encountered the fact that millions of parents conservative moderate even some rational liberals worry colleges have become indoctrination factories.

28:52But for the rest of us it's nothing new. Three years ago when Bethany Mandel and I published our best selling book stolen youth about the leftist indoctrination of children in every facet of their lives. Parents would often come up to us tears in their eyes telling us how they'd lost their children when they went away to college. The kids got to school and were pushed to conform with every leftist idea heartbreakingly many eventually caught off their parents for their wrong thing. So the Duffy's are absolutely right to worry and it's hardly a new thing during my own college years in the late 1990s everyone knew even then that regurgitating leftist ideas would boost your grades in certain classes. I wrote a paper about how the family was an outdated concept a trip I never actually believed and got my A. Now I have teenagers myself in colleges very much on our minds like the Duffy's our family talks about which schools are off the list for us. Our kids are free to choose whatever school they want but they know we aren't paying for school at Columbia where Jewish kids had to sue the administration to get a safe passage liaison for their physical protection. Harvard is also out.

29:58It has catered to a leftist fringe and the school has been subsumed by it way before woke one Harvard was the breeding ground for extreme far left ideas Harvard tried to get rid of single sex groups including fraternities and sororities until federal courts forced it to lift the ban. It uses its massive endowment to fight political battles such as opposing fossil fuels and boosting DEI there's no data on how many kids go off to college and become radicalized beyond recognition but everyone knows the stories parents can't be blamed for not wanting to chance that and if progressives are really puzzled at that they should imagine if the reverse were true and their kids were coming home from college as freshly minted conservatives think of the upward then there's a reason why southern schools have become so much more popular in the last few years. And my colleges like Dartmouth Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago have champion free speech as an important value on their campuses. Many parents of all political affiliations are looking at what so many of America's top tier schools offer and saying no thanks.

30:59I'm Carol Markowitz columnist for the New York Post and Fox News dot com. Listen ad free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts and prime members can listen to the show ad free on Amazon Music and for up to the minute news go to Fox News dot com.